Team Edward? Nah. I’m Team Comfy Pants.

I think I may need to have a priest bless my phone. Why, you ask? Because lately it has become overrun with vampires.

Every time I open up Facebook and scroll through my news feed, I see them. Said news feed is cluttered with advertisements for a variety of “choose your own adventure” games. Do you know what I’m talking about? Let me describe them for you. There’s a cartoon woman that pops up on the screen, looking like she’s dressed for a night on the town, or a romance novel cover photo shoot, or both.  And then a supermodel-looking guy pops up next to her. A text box appears over the cartoon woman saying something to the effect of “oh no! I just found that that my boyfriend Sexypants McStudmuffin is a vampire! What do I do?” Then a couple choices pop up and you’re instructed to pick one to determine what happens next in the game. The choices are usually something like “let him bite you” and “run away.” If you choose “run away,” other choices will pop up. Those other choices tend to steer you toward accepting the first choice (“let him bite you”). It’s clear that the makers of these games WANT you to pick the becoming a vampire option. I imagine that the creators of these games got hooked on Twilight as teenagers, went to college to study software development with “Team Edward” posters hung up on their dorm room walls, and then went to work for a gaming company so they could keep living out their vampire fantasies AND get paid to do it.

Here is my question…why? WHY the obsession with vampires? In particular, why do people find vampires sexy?

Now, I will freely admit that I am far from an expert on vampire lore. But I think I get the general idea. Please correct me if I’m wrong, but judging from the various TV and movie depictions I’ve encountered, here is what I can expect from the vampire lifestyle:

• Someone will bite me to initiate this process. And it will be painful.
• I will get extremely pale.
• My teeth may or may not be pointy at all times.
• My physical appearance will not change for the rest of eternity.
• I will need to consume blood — and ONLY blood — for sustenance.
• If I try to go outside during the day, I will burn to a crisp. Or I might sparkle. Either way, I will have an intense, noticeable reaction that makes it impossible to be my introvert self and fade into the background.
• I will never sleep again and be up all night, every night.
• I may or may not have shape shifting abilities such as turning into a bat.
• I may or may not have special powers such as mind control, super speed, super strength, and/or being really emo all the time.
• Whoever initiates me into this vampire lifestyle becomes my mate and will also exhibit all the above listed characteristics.
• I will have to wear sexy steampunk garb all the time. Or dress like I work for Forever 21.

NONE OF THIS SOUNDS SEXY TO ME. AT ALL. Let me tell you all the reasons I object to this lifestyle, point by point. I realize some people enjoy being bit and all, and if that’s your thing, you do you. But biting isn’t my idea of a good time. I am already pasty white with pointy teeth, so I don’t need to sign up for eternal damnation for that. I don’t much care for the idea of no changes to my physical appearance. I mostly like how I look, but I’m not in my prime if you know what I mean. If vampires were going to come along and freeze my aging process, they should have showed up a few years ago when I was 30 pounds lighter and the gray hairs hadn’t started showing up. I would have also appreciated them showing up back then because I was single and on the lookout for an eternal mate. But I’m happily married now, thank you.

And let’s talk about that blood thing. EW. I don’t want to have kill people to eat. Yeah, I could pull a Twilight and “be vegetarian” and live off animal blood. But I’m not about hunting cute furry woodland creatures either. (Well, most of the time. It might be fun to get revenge on the deer that jumped in front of my car though.) I could go around robbing blood banks or something, but I’m not eager to get a permanent record. And my biggest objection to this whole thing? I. LIKE. FOOD! Giving up pasta, meat, cheese, fruit, bread, ice cream, etc for blood?! No thank you!

I also really love sleep. Who wants to leave that behind?

And going outside! While for the most part I am an indoor person, I do loves me some Vitamin D. Give me sunlight or give me death!

The only parts of this proposition that are somewhat appealing are the shape shifting and possible superpowers bit. I could get on board with that if there were a few changes to this whole vampire deal.

“What about the sexy steampunk garb? You didn’t respond to that point,” you ask.

Well, I can tell where your mind is today! I’m getting to that. Give me a second.

Here are my proposed changes to the vampire mythology:

• I still get to eat real food. None of this blood nonsense.
• No initiation bites.
• I can go outside during the day without sunburn or sparkle.
• I am still able to sleep, and I will get GOOD sleep. Nothing can wake me up before I’m ready.
• I am still married to The Husband. Whoever turns me doesn’t get to call eternal dibs.
• I can have shape shifting powers, but I am not limited to bats. I’d much prefer to be something awe inspiring and majestic, like an eagle. Because ‘Murica.
• I can have powers like super speed, super strength, super mind reading, and most importantly super calorie consumption (i.e. eating whatever I want as much as I want while retaining a perfect figure).
• I don’t want to be even pastier and have even pointier teeth than I already do. Why can’t vampires have a permanent tan and nice straight teeth? Especially since I’ve gotten rid of the biting initiation.
• Actually, I think it might be nice to have fangs on demand, like if I want to scare the crap out of loud obnoxious neighbors so they’ll stop playing salsa music at all hours of the night. But other than that, I don’t need ’em.
• I can wear sexy steampunk garb when I feel like it. But most of the time I will wear jeans and tee shirts, and this will be perfectly acceptable. Gone will be the expectation that vampires need to look like they’re posing for the Victoria’s Secret catalog. COMFY CLOTHES FOR ETERNITY Y’ALL.
• And speaking of eternity, no more eternal damnation. I could do a lot of good for the world if I was getting amazing sleep every night, eating without stress, and had all those powers. That should count for something.

“Amy, you can’t make all those changes. What you’re describing is not a vampire,” you protest.

Sure it is. My response to that is if Stephenie Meyer can make a ton of changes and still call her creations vampires, so can I.

What do you think? I think maybe I need to recruit my software developer husband to make a new version of these vampire choice games. I’d be curious to know how many people choose my version.